Kilkenny baby!

This weekend has been yet another excellent mix of the best of what Ireland has to offer. It’s not all been glamour and bliss though, as last night didn’t grant us much sleep beyond an hour or two, despite going to bed at around 11 pm and neither for reasons you may already start to think of. No, as we travel pretty much budget –quite the essential when you venture off every weekend- we generally stay in hostels and the like. And this particular one in Kilkenny didn’t have any doubles left, hence our choice to spend the night in a dorm bedroom. Well, perhaps we’ll spend a few Euros more next time, as we found ourselves being woken up in the middle of the night by what seemed like a huddle of Irish gnomes, drinking and giggling and chewing on their English and blurting out phrases, sounds and burps aka making it quite a challenge to sleep for us. Ah well, quite remarkable on the other hand how quickly one gets used to a certain standard, as last September I was still sleeping seven days in a row on the hard floor of some particularly filthy apartment in Reykjavik. Expectation management, I would say!

But well, the trip down south to Kilkenny was a successful one, as we sauntered at ease through the medieval town, cherishing all that the renovated castle had to offer, drinking coffee in the bright sunlight (it’s sunny here, really), savouring wines with our Guinness pie, sipping freshly made orange juice… I think you get the gist. Castles and abbeys and cathedrals and what not makes Kilkenny a pretty destination for a day or two, though it’s really not too big and good weather is pretty much essential. Luckily Ireland has plenty of that! I’ll let the pictures do the talking for that part.

Thursday we visited a play at Olympia theatre, one of Dublin’s historic treasures. The play features a glance into the Irish war of independence against the British, and I must admit, although being regarded as heroes for much of the past 100 years by us Western Europeans, those English guys didn’t behave all too well here in Ireland. A whole new dimension to Europe’s relatively recent history, really interesting to say the least! For those who plan on visiting – it’s worth a stopover this theatre; I add a picture which gives some sort of an impression of what the interior looks like.

Let’s finish with an impression of the local ‘DJ’ in one of Kilkenny’s restaurants / bars / saloons. I didn’t dare take a picture but I’m sure a vivid description will suffice ;) The restaurant looked pretty alright when we entered – a hint of an American décor with these chequered soft benches on the walls, adjacent tables and chairs, large coffee machine behind the bar – you know. The big screen featuring a golf match didn’t quite enhance the otherwise fairly cosy atmosphere, and it only got worse when around 10-ish a bloke set up a CD player and a spotlight depicting red, blue, and yellow disco lights on the ceiling. The guy must have been in his forties; belly, neck wringing from his polo t-shirt, moustache, glasses, and a stack of copied CDs carried with him. The ramshackle table he had put his equipment on was too low and he didn’t even wobble on the rhythm of the music he was playing. Although he was only tuning in a new song when the previous one had ended – a bit like a radio would – he wore huge white headphones and admittedly had a professional sounding radio voice that he used to declare ‘60s 70s 80s music’ was being played every ten minutes. Nothing more. Nonetheless we enjoyed the ‘show’; watching the restaurant slowly transform into the ’25-plus’ bar it was advertised at, with us (Bo in particular of course) dragging down the average age significantly, exemplified by the two elderly ladies alongside use who were not having any trouble at all choking their glasses of sherry. Good evening though!